This week, market research firm IRI Group has announced the results of their research shows that 54% of products sold by the supermarkets and major retailers were on promotions such as ‘multi-buys’ and Special Offer promotions.

This compares with 28% in Europe overall, making the UK the country with the highest number of promotions in Europe. The impact for manufacturers is immense, as the promotions are no longer having the big impact on sales they once had, and the manufacturer is no longer seeing the uplift on promotions that are subsidised at the retailers. That combined with the misleading promotions means that something has to be done to tackle this problem, perhaps by introducing a cap or percentage of products that can be promoted by a retailer or supermarket on promotion.

So how does this fair in the wholesale sector?

The wholesalers all have their own ‘Special Offers’ for the week and also for the month and these are usually the most popular products to help bring the customers in through the door with seasonal variations. So soft drinks may be on ‘Special Offer’ in the summer, and alcoholic drinks in the winter close to the Christmas period. This product range is usually limited and no more than 10% of the range of products the wholesaler will sell.

Most wholesalers also feature a ‘multi-buy’ offer where if you’re buying 2, 3 or 4 products then you will receive a discounted price. This is prevalent and a ‘multi-buy’ is available on almost all products. Indeed, Start Catering and JJs Food Service offer a ‘multi-buy’ on more than 80% of their product range.

With our analytics software, a wholesaler can keep track of the ‘Special Offers’ and ‘multi-buy’ prices charged by competitors and so that they can time their own ‘Special Offers’ accordingly.

We will be looking in more detail at the ‘Special Offers’ and ‘multi-buys’ offered to customers to see if these really work and will report back with our findings!

The big four supermarkets have all announced varying responses to the Living Wage Standards which will come into affect next year, but have been trumped by the discounters Aldi and Lidl (again!).

Aldi said that it would pay its employees £8.40 an hour or £9.45 in London and Lidl has said that it will be paying at least £8.20 in England, Wales and Scotland and £9.35 for those in London.

Both Aldi and Lidl have been able to offer this as they already pay their employees a higher hourly rate than the supermarkets, and so it’s not so much of a big jump for them. Its also great publicity and advertising for them too, showing that they are the best paying retailers in the market today and looking after their staff. But essentially it’s also a business decision, as paying higher wages for staff reduced staff turnover and the costs that come with it.

So far, the supermarkets haven’t had much of a response with Sainsbury’s saying its employee wages are £7.20 for the workers over the age of 25 from April 2016. Tesco’s are at £8.80 and Morrison’s at £8.20 and so still behind the discounters but this could change.

With the wholesalers employing vast numbers of staff then what is their position? Well, Charles Wilson, CEO of Booker plc mentioned at the last AGM that they constantly monitor pay against retail sector standards and although they are keeping an eye on the situation they feel that they offer a fair wage.

So far, no other wholesalers have come out to comment on their current wage structure and the new Living Wage Standard and whether they will be increasing employees’ hourly pay to reflect this.

However, there is another big factor to consider here. With the rise of the Living Wage Standard then a large number of cafes, restaurants, bars etc. will be affected and the increased employee cost will hit the bottom line. Many of these bars, cafes etc will not survive and go bust, which in turn mean that wholesalers who supply them will be affected too.

So it would be interesting to see the affect on the wholesaler market next year, once the Living Wage Standard is live!

After many months of research, programming and data gathering, we launched the Improve That Price Analytics online reports. The report provides users with live data on the Foodservice Wholesale and Cash & Cary market. These reports can be viewed by category, brand or type. The data can also be filtered to show only the Price Marked, Promotions or the Multi-buys. The site also features the price history of products, is very user friendly and you can have a two weeks free trial at improvethatprice.com/analytics. For further information email Faisal on faisal@improvethatprice.com.